Final Thesis

University of Huddersfield Repository Weavill, Kelsie Breaking Kayfabe – Professional Wrestling in the key of Erving Goffman Original Citation Weavill, Kelsie (2020) Breaking Kayfabe – Professional Wrestling in the key of Erving Goffman. Masters thesis, University of Huddersfield. This version is available at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/35385/ The University Repository is a digital collection of the research output of the University, available on Open Access. Copyright and Moral Rights for the items on this site are retained by the individual author and/or other copyright owners. 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For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: [email protected]. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/ University of Huddersfield School of Music, Humanities and Media MA by Research – Drama, Dance and Performance Kelsie Ross Weavill Breaking Kayfabe – Professional Wrestling in the key of Erving Goffman A thesis submitted to the University of Huddersfield in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MA by research Main supervisor: Dr. Eric Hetzler Co-supervisor: Dr. Madelon Hoedt Submitted: 23/07/2020 1 Copyright statement: i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/ or schedules to this thesis) owns any copyright in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Huddersfield the right to use such Copyright for any administrative, promotional, educational and/or teaching purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts, may be made only in accordance with the regulations of the University Library. Details of these regulations may be obtained from the Librarian. Details of these regulations may be obtained from the Librarian. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of any patents, designs, trademarks and any and all other intellectual property rights except for the Copyright (the “Intellectual Property Rights”) and any reproductions of copyright works, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property Rights and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property Rights and/or Reproductions. 2 Acknowledgements: To AD, AL, CS, MW, PP, and many others, thank you for your support. To Eric and Madelon, thank you for reigning me in when needed. And finally, to AS, BS and HW. Rest easy brothers. 3 Abstract: For several decades, professional wrestling audiences have been aware of the predetermined nature of the ‘sport’. Despite this, the theatrical genre of professional wrestling still relies on the insistence of its own legitimacy, a concept internally referred to as ‘kayfabe’. This thesis explores the phenomenon of kayfabe by identifying the various gimmicks that help define professional wrestling as a form of theatre instead of sport, and by tracking the implementation and understanding of kayfabe within the American professional wrestling industry from historical to postmodern context. This is achieved by analysis of professional wrestling through Erving Goffman’s understanding of ‘keying’: a device used to transform activity from one collective understanding to another. It becomes clear that the movement from legitimate sporting action to premeditated, melodramatically amplified combat stems from an insecurity surrounding the fiscal feasibility of wrestling remaining legitimate, and the emerging presence of ‘kayfabed’ behaviour to sustain the ‘legitimacy’ of the fabrication produces a simulation of sporting celebrity that can be controlled and manipulated at will, seeking the organic acceptance of the presented narrative from the willing consumer. Through further academic analysis of professional wrestling, and the interrogation of the spectacle through the work of Goffman, kayfabe within professional wrestling could potentially be defined as the keying of impression management into the theatrical framing of the kayfabe lamination, and continued analysis of kayfabe in this light may help us to further understand the consumerist nature of celebrity culture as a whole. 4 Table of contents: Introduction to professional wrestling and kayfabe – 6 Outline of sections – 21 2.1 Introduction to pugilism – 25 2.2 The original fabrication – the ‘worked’ match – 32 2.3 Working vs Shooting – gimmicks and the ‘double cross’ – 41 2.4 Conclusion to pugilism analysis – the ‘closed’ kayfabe – 50 3.1 Introduction of the ‘broadcast’ key – 53 3.2 The rise of McMahon – analysis of the ‘closed’ kayfabe – 57 3.3 Introduction to the ‘open’ kayfabe – 64 3.4 The ‘worked shoot’ – conclusion to historical analysis – 70 4.1 Introduction to academic analysis – 78 4.2 Semiotics and keying – 82 4.3 Fan participation and the ‘theatrical frame’ – 87 4.4 Selling the gimmick and ‘impression management’ – 97 Conclusion – 104 Bibliography – 106 5 Introduction to professional wrestling and kayfabe Professional wrestling is a performance art practice, simultaneously theatrical in its athletic presentation as it is sporting according to its own defining terms. With the business model of touring companies that in practice have operated not too dissimilar to their carnivalesque predecessors, the performance claims to be a real combat sport basing its vital dramaturgical output on the physicality and conflict of the wrestlers. Originally based on the medieval sport of pugilism before its transition to predeterminism, the catch wrestling foundations combined with martial arts and circus influences carry a narrative quality that tell the story of good versus evil through the metaphor of a combat sport promotion. The winners of matches are decided in advance, with the full cooperation and awareness of all performers involved, from wrestlers, to referees, to commentary, to the spectators. Central to this setup is the notion of ‘kayfabe’, loosely defined by David Shoemaker as “the wrestlers’ adherence to the big lie, the insistence that the unreal is real” (Shoemaker, 2013, p 15). Activity ‘in’ kayfabe refers to the dramaturgical or hyperbolic activity of the performers that in turn builds the internal logic of the kayfabe world the wrestlers compete in; things that contradict the logic and/or expose the fabrication of the kayfabe during performance can range from a ‘botched’ sequences of moves to misguided or ineffective dramaturgical application. Similarly, the instability of real life can infringe on the kayfabe externally, evidenced through events such as legitimate injury sustained mid-performance or otherwise, and the acknowledgement of interpersonal relationships in contradiction to the kayfabe narrative. Arguments have arisen as to whether we live in a ‘post-kayfabe’ world due to the open acknowledgement of wrestling’s scripted nature in today’s technologically advanced media climate; if everyone, including the people that watch, is aware of wrestling’s predetermined nature, then where does the appeal of this simulation of sport actually lie? No longer is the fakery of professional wrestling an unspoken secret, it remains today as simply a given fact, and defining professional wrestling as theatre instead of sport allows for the 6 “rules of the game” (Mazer, 1998, p 27) to be analysed and cemented without the complications of the “official face of activity” (Goffman, 1986, p 126) contradicting what we as, ultimately, fans, already knew. Various definitions and comprehensions of kayfabe exist within professional wrestling research, but all somewhat refer to the performative function of the wrestling event. Benjamin Litherland states that kayfabe: “…refers to the practice of sustaining the in-diegesis performance into everyday life. At its most basic, kayfabe fundamentally means presentation of wrestling as a legitimate sporting competition rather than theatrical entertainment. As a concept, however, kayfabe sits centrally as one of wrestling’s defining pleasures and modes of entertainment, complicating many of the above pleasures and complaints, and ‘[eluding] moral and academic authority’” (Litherland, 2018, p 101). Considering this, I will be exploring the evolution of kayfabe within professional wrestling from historical to postmodern context, noting the scattered implementations of dramaturgy that transformed professional wrestling from a combat sport practiced by the working class, to a genre of performance that takes elements of its original appeal, fusing them with elaborate dramaturgy that helps build an uncanny world in which the spectator can enter and interact with as if the dramatic action taking place was, indeed, real, purely on the basis that the presentation of it claims to be real. This examination will be complimented by the work of Canadian-American sociologist Erving Goffman, with explicit reference to Frame Analysis. Professional wrestling research usually explores the phenomenon of kayfabe within the context of the chosen author’s lens, as opposed to

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